a thaw and a snowed in blizzard

January, February, and half of March were totally brutal as far as weather goes. It was arctic blast after arctic blast. Finally on March 12th, just a week after Samuel sledded into the dry creek, the weather broke and the boys were playing without coats off at the park. 

Our neighbor's yard turned into a lake, as it's prone to do due to the dumb road and culvert they installed behind our house. The entire field drains into her yard. Brilliant engineering. 

She was out there with a shovel to push ice out of the way so the water could flow. 

Terry and I walked down to see her waterfall and when we turned around we could see the sunset reflecting in the reforming ice waves on the sidewalk. 

I sent this picture to someone the next morning. We were doing school despite the public and private schools cancelling due to a "massive" blizzard that was approaching. 

There was supposed to be a lot of snow (18 inches predicted) and a whole lotta wind so the town got shut down. But we had nearby people over to hang out and play Axis and Allies

Steven and Prae came as well as Silas who was home from the Naval Academy on spring break. Dylan, newly returned from Africa, braved the perilous drive across town and was stranded with Prae and Steven overnight (so was Zeb). And Zeb came because he knew he couldn't make it up his parent's steep driveway.  

I had zero interest in playing such a complicated game so I baked cinnamon rolls, cookies... 

...and shepherds pie, which I fed to everyone for dinner.

Terry whooped them all pretty quickly (in like three hours), which was surprising since he always talked about college games taking an entire weekend. Afterwards Terry and Steven sat down and dug into the complex rules to make sure they were playing correctly. They weren't. They vowed to do better the next day.

Breakfast the next morning was glorious. We gave some to ur neighbor across the street. He stopped by to tell us his wife had just died. 😞

The storm ended up ending on Thursday, but school was still cancelled. They group took a break from their second game of Axis and Allies to go get Blaze Pizza for lunch (it was pi day) and in order to shovel out. 

That's a pretty big pile next to the Malibu. 

More big piles next to the driveway and sidewalk.  

Pretty tall drifts in the back. You can see how short the fence appears. We hadn't had a drift there since Atlas I think...but on that occasion the drift when right over the fence.

There were two drifts on front corner of the yard too. 

Luna enjoyed playing fetch with that football. 

Kitten Cat enjoyed watching everyone from safety. 

More playing after lunch. 

The kids were getting bored. The A&A game had began shortly after 9 or 10am but showed no signs of ending so I let the kids play video games despite it not being a weekend (we had done school that morning at least). Terry's game didn't end until after 6pm I think (we watched a movie too while waiting)! Talk about an all day event! After the first game ended so quickly we were not prepared for such a large time investment for the second game. Turns out they didn't know what they were doing in the first game. That's enough Axis and Allies for about a decade. 😜😂

school and family lately

January was a crazy month with the new flooring going down. I keep saying that. Here is a video to prove what work we did. 

Beyond that we pretty much lived our normal lives. School, weekend, repeat. One particular day, January 30th, Evie decided she'd recite her poem in an unorthodox way, while performing jumping jacks to the rhythm.

When the new year began Terry started a New Testament reading plan with the youth and Samuel had wanted to take part. He brought home one of the schedules and searched high and low for a little Gideon bible so he could start reading. 

He did it all on his own! It was so darn sweet and heart warming. I pray he will keep it up, but after the first chapter of Matthew, which is all "names," he got a little bored. We did get him his own Bible for his eighth birthday. 

Evie is often surrounded by the pets...and her brothers.

On February 8th, Samuel lost the one front tooth that was still hanging in there. 

Mandatory mommy and kitty snuggling for Ezra on February 10th.

Boring grammar with Noah on February 12th. I never learned anything more than the very basics. It's quite challenging for me but Noah picks it up quickly.

The day before Valentines Day Terry and I went out to Qdoba for an quick mini lunch date. While  out I got the kids Valentines Day balloons for the following day. Samuel had to hang onto his while doing his reading lesson. We were almost done with his entire book! Look at those big long words! 

Just a week later he completed the very last lesson, #231, of his phonics book! That felt like such an accomplishment. When he was two and three, he could barely talk. We called it caveman talk. Then he went to communication preschool which helped a bit. They discouraged me from homeschooling him, citing that he'd need more help. Kindergarten was a challenge after the lessons got a little more difficult, but we back off, and after that summer, he came back very strong in first grade. This year for second grade he's done just amazing! He apparently taught himself a great deal while "reading" and pondering over books during the summer. I'm so proud of him.

Here's his very last lesson.

Meanwhile, the cat was saying, "I am life."

Evie has always been a voracious reader and had the ambition to be an author. She took a big step in that direction with her first book. It has to do with magical unicorns. I think she was heavily influenced by her friend Jillian's unicorn birthday party and the show My Little Pony. Plus, the girl likes to read and write.

On February 20th we had Abigail and Julia over while Noah went to their house with Moses and then to the church with Terry to help set up for youth group. I made my very first meal with my replacement Instant Pot (the one I received at Christmas was faulty and I had just that day got the new one in the mail).

That night at Awana was "Dress Like a Mess" night. Evie had come home the previous week and set out her best-worst clothes for the occasion (notice the volleyball knee pads). She also painted everyone's face ridiculously with her Christmas watercolor pencils. Terry had the best idea though; for Ezra to simply drape his favorite baby blanket around his shoulders. Yeahhhhh, that thing is toast. My sister made it for him and because it was more knobbly than the others and he liked to roll the strings between his fingers as he sucked his thumb to sleep and he pretty much destroyed it. 

See what I mean?

Saturday, February 23rd, was a very big day. Terry and Noah were on a mall mission trip trying to have spiritual conversations and share the gospel, while Evie and I were reading through the Dinner Theater script for this upcoming May (a fundraiser). The four of us are planning on going on Terry's Mexico/L.A. mission trip in June. After the read through we had to set up for the chili cook off the following day (another fundraiser). So I treated us to some cheap Burger King ice cream on the way home.

The following day, after the chili cook off, we were all pretty worn out. We let the kids eat their usual cereal and watch a movie while Terry and I went on a date at Longhorn and bummed around Target afterwards. 

The next night, February 25th, I caught Trouncer trying to eat a bit of pillow fluff. I pulled on it to take it away and this giant string of it came out out. I'm pointing at the part I could see when I started pulling. The rest was in his throat!

We had some good laughs on February 28th. Terry had been swinging Samuel around with his two legs stuck through one pajama pants leg. We were calling him a Mer-man, from Zoolander. Then Evie randomly told Terry to "bray like a donkey." 😂

For the last couple months or weeks I had been reading the Wingfeather Saga. They are amazing. Written by the Christian singer and songwriter Andrew Peterson, who I have a great regard and interest in now. This is what I wrote on facebook about them, "Oh, my heart. These books, people. These books are amazing. I’ve been wanting to share some kind of deep, poetic, beautiful words but I’m not a poet or a book reviewer. These books take me back to my first love, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. When I finished LOTR I was depressed for a week. I didn’t want the magic and beauty to be over. These books are the same but perhaps more poignant. Magical. Beautiful. Truthful. Deep. The Kingdom! Bible verses kept coming to mind. Relatable moments and characters. These books have and will continue to shape how I see the world and what Jesus did for us."

Last weekend was severly cold and terrible. We spent a good amount of time laying around, watching movies, and mandatory snuggling with mommy. Notice his hand flapping around indicating how he was trying to get away. He's not very compliant.

Eating peanuts with a very captive audience.

We were so bored so we decided to finally read Evie's book, which she had just finished laminating. It took 45 minutes!

She did not want her picture taken. 

Offering a critique of how daddy was reading it. 

A short sample of her book.



A hilarious note Evie wrote to herself in her completed Cursive writing book. "Thank you myself. See you always!"

2019 New Years sledding

Since Terry didn't have a New Year's Eve party at the church, we had an even more enjoyable and relaxed New Years Day. In years past I've had to wrack my brains for ideas to get us out of the house so Terry could sleep off his all-nighter. We ended up going sledding, much like we did after Christmas in 2017, which incidentally was the last time we had been to the Meadowbrook hill. 

Aren't filters great? Here I am looking better than I ever have, all without a shower and still in my pajamas. 😂

Before we left the house the kids played all together outside in the tunnel that Terry and the littles had made the day before.

Evie!

Trouncer!

Jumping! That's Samuel.

Ezra's expression is my favorite.

There's always a decent pile right there from shoveling the deck, worth even breaking off our rain gauge so they can jump from there...

After lunch we went over to Meadowbrook, along with a whole ton of other people who I tried not to capture.

There goes the Dwidgie. He's the lightest and fastest.

Another smile from Evie.

Some video of Noah and Evie heading down after Samuel and Ezra.

Ezra wipeout...

...Samuel smokes him...

...But Ezra gets him back later.

A classic Six Pack pileup. 

Video of the collision.

The troupe trouping back up the hill.

Just one more time.

Not wanting to cook, we stopped at the store and got the makings for jalapeño poppers. We had to get up early the next day for skiing so we didn't want a lot of work.